


I Was Born When They Took My Name

by HunterPeverell



Series: Welcome to Glory [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Fear, Gen, Pain, Psychological Trauma, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 15:37:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3493661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HunterPeverell/pseuds/HunterPeverell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or how Bucky Barnes was lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Was Born When They Took My Name

Clint Barton Codename: Hawkeye told him he could have the world record of longest held Prisoner of War. Tony Stark Codename: Iron Man had cracked up, both, Bucky gathered, at the joke (and he knew it was a joke, it fit the criteria of a joke he had stored in his databanks) and at Steve’s disapproving face. Steve did not laugh at the joke. Bucky had noted each reaction in order to determine whether or not what Clint Barton Codename Hawkeye had said was funny.

He couldn’t decide. He couldn’t figure it out. He did not know what the Asset or the Soldier or Bucky would do.

So he said nothing.

He had had a lot of practise at not saying anything over the years, except when he screamed.

*

_May 1945_

Bucky woke up screaming.

He didn’t know where he was; everything was a blur, nothing made any sense. There were voices and flashes of silver and what the hell was happening and _where the hell was Steve?_

Bucky didn’t know.

“Ah, you are avake!” A short man, balding with little round spectacles, was standing before him smiling.

“W-where . . .” To Bucky’s confusion his voice died. The man lifted a glass of water to his mouth and tilted some of the clear liquid in. Bucky sipped it gratefully. “Where am I?” He rasped again.

“You are in a secure facility.” The man said.

Bucky squinted. “You look . . . familiar.”

“I vould hope so.” The man said. “You nearly died capturing me in zhe mountains.”

_Flashes; snow and screaming and pain and Steve, Steve looking horrified as Bucky fell down . . . down . . ._

_‘Our target’s name is Armin Zola. He’s a scientist who works closely with the Red Skull. We’re to bring him in alive. Our intelligence says he’ll board a train that will go through the Alps in two days. Let’s move out.’_

_‘Fire again! Kill him!’_

_Blue shots, red-white-blue shield, open air, Steve is panicked, falling. Falling . . ._

“Zola.” Bucky breathed, staring in horror up at the little man who was still smirking, still looking eagerly at Bucky, like Bucky was some meat he really wanted to eat.

Bucky strained away from the man, but his limbs wouldn’t move. He rolled his head down, suddenly feeling numb and loose even though he really needed to _get away, get away now!_

His legs and torso were restrained. His right arm was . . . Bucky eyed his left arm—or lack thereof—with a displaced sense of revulsion. It was a bloody stump, wrapped in white linens. Bucky vaguely remembered someone with a saw cutting off the jutting bone and trailing ligaments. With mounting panic and horror he rolled his sluggish head back up to see Zola still creepily looking at him.

“You vere zhe only survivor of my experiment.” Zola said. “I hav made a knock-off of zhe serum made by Doctor Erskine and administered to Steven Rogers. You are to be our new soldier.”

“Who’s we?” Bucky asked, his voice cracking. He couldn’t focus, his attention was short and his vison blurry. “Steve’ll rescue me.” He croaked. Steve would. Steve would always come for him.

“HYDRA, of course.” Zola said, smile going nasty. “You are to be the new fist of HYDRA.”

“Never!” Bucky shouted, forcing his body to respond as he struggled to sit up, glaring at the man and struggling weakly against his restraints. “You don’t . . . Steve’ll stop you! HYDRA will _never_ win, and I will _never ever_ fight for you!”

“Oh,” Zola said, walking over to a set of controls a few feet away and fiddling with several knobs. “You vill hav no choice, I am afraid. You vill not even know vhat you vant . . . You vill never remember who you are.”

“No,” Bucky whispered, gazing in horror at Zola. “Steve’ll come. Steve’ll find me.” His vision was tinted with darkness, and he fell back down onto the chair weakly, unable to control his body, unable to fight, unable to . . .

“Oh, Sargent Barnes,” Zola said, smirking and walking towards a door. “Your Captain iz never coming . . . Steve Rogers has been dead for three months.”

“No . . .” Bucky whispered as he slid away from reality. “No . . .”

“Put him on ice.” He heard Zola say before he was gone.

*

_October 1954_

Bucky woke up screaming.

His throat felt raw and tender. His screams died away once he had regained consciousness. There were people all around him, in a crush of voices and sounds and colors that felt like a drain was slowly pulling everything apart in front of him. His head was buzzing, his thought process was slow, and he was having trouble remembering where he was, what he was doing there . . . _who_ he was . . .

“He’s awake.” Someone said. “Go get Zola.”

Someone left, their footsteps loud and echoed oddly in Bucky’s ears.

Bucky blinked and looked down. There . . . he remembered he had lost an arm, a bloodied cloth wound over the stump, but now there was . . . There was an arm; a hand. It was sliver and so much like his lost arm and Bucky whimpered again. He lifted it up and clenched it into a fist. A doctor in green scrubs and glasses leaned in to study it, and suddenly—

Suddenly the doctor wasn’t there at all; it was Zola. Zola who was pumping him full of drugs, who was telling him how he would serve HYDRA, Zola who told him Steve was dead—

The man was choking; Bucky had wrapped the gleaming silver hand around his throat and was crushing it. He tried to get the hand to stop, to let go, to just . . .

Then Zola was there, stabbing a needle into his leg and smiling in satisfaction.

“Zhe new fist of HYDRA.” Zola murmured, and Bucky fell back into the darkness.

*

_January 1955_

Bucky awoke screaming.

Dimly he heard other people talking, moving around him. He stopped, feeling so cold. His body was trembling, and he distantly noted he was naked and dripping with cold fluid. His legs were tangled beneath him and his right arm was curled against his body. His left was dangling by his side like a discarded toy.

People were forcing him to his feet, talking, talking, _talking_. Bucky wanted them to shut the hell up.

They put him in a chair and set him back. He was still shuddering violently, so while he heard the hiss of the restraints—when did he learn that? It terrified him that he couldn’t remember when he had first heard that sound—he couldn’t feel the metal on his trembling limbs.

“N-n-no.” He stuttered.

“It’s trying to talk.” A voice murmured. “Fascinating.”

“The cryo was a success,” another said. “Write down his stats, and make sure the arm is functioning.”

“I know.” the first voice said irritably. “Think it’s hungry? Think it can think?”

“It might.” the second voice said. “I mean; it’s not due for programming and conditioning until next week. So perhaps the damage the cryo has induced hasn’t fully hurt its mental capacities yet.”

“Huh. The programming is going to be hell on it.”

“Well, it certainly isn’t any good to us now.” the second voice snorted.

“P-please.” Barnes whispered, a trickle of the cold liquid running down his face, another caught in the line of his nose. “’M B-Bucky,” he stuttered. “Le’me go. Please.”

“It remembers its old name.” the first voice said. “Fascinating.”

“I need Steve.” Bucky pleaded. “Please, le’ me see Steve.”

“Who the hell is Steve?” the second voice asked. “No, y’know what? Put him under. I’m not talking with a thing.”

“No!” Bucky yelled, struggling against the restraints he still could not feel as the blurs of light and color moved around him in a fog.

Darkness.

*

_July 1955_

Barnes woke up screaming.

His vision was clear, for once; Barnes had almost forgotten how clear the world could be. There was a headband wrapped around his head, a soft voice speaking in his ear. Pictures flashed in front of him in grainy color; a red flag with a black symbol like a hammer and moon. A black flag with a red skull. Death, violence, destruction. _Disorder is the bane of this world_ the soft voice said in his ear.

Barnes usually stopped screaming after he woke up. But this time was different--Barnes was his name, but hadn't there been another? He tried to think, though the voice in his ears made it hard. B . . . B . . . Bu . . . his breathing picked up when he realized that _he couldn't remember_. How could he forget his _name?_ How could he . . . the voice was clawing at his ears now . . . how could he forget it? How could he have lost it? How could he . . . he couldn’t stop it now; he screamed.

His arms—the silver one was still fused to his shoulder—were held down in restraints. So were his legs and his chest and torso. He banged his head against the back of the chair, hoping to remove the headband and the soft, soothing, painful voice.

_Steve is coming for me,_ he thought wildly, hoping and praying and begging because if there was a God above, He’d send the one thing Barnes has always believed in, always loved . . .

But Steve was dead.

He remembered Zola telling him that, so long ago when Barnes still could see clearly by his own will, rather than the people he . . . the people who have him.

Suddenly a door opened to his left and a man walked in. He hurried behind Barnes. Barnes shifted, trying to see behind him. He felt the top part of the chair being removed and replaced with another. He couldn’t see. The pictures on the wall were frozen on a bunch of saluting men.

Barnes felt the man press his head back and close restraints around his forehead and jaw, so that Barnes’ head was immobile.

“No!” Barnes shouted. “No, please, stop! STOP!” The last word was ripped from his throat and forced into the air as electricity spiked through the head restraints and jolted his body. He strained against the restraints, barely seeing the man leave as silently as he’d come, and screamed as more electricity zapped him.

“Do not resist, Sargent.” Zola’s voice spoke from everywhere, and Barnes' eyes were watered and clouded with unshed tears. “Resistance vill bring more pain . . . and this test really does not require much pain.”

“I will never join HYDRA, you bastard.” Barnes gasped.

“Oh, Sargent, you hav no idea vhat ve are capable of.” Zola said. “This test is to see how strong your vill iz, and zhen ve vill break you.”

“I hate HYDRA.” Barnes spat. “I will _never_ join you.”

“And yet, it iz not you ve require.”

Barnes paused. “What?” He croaked.

“It iz not you ve require.” Zola repeated. “Ve vill destroy everything that you stand for, and in the remains of the man you vere, there vill be a new man, strong and unshakably loyal to HYRDA. Hail HYDRA!”

“No,” Barnes whispered as the soft voice started in his ear again.

*

_April 1957_

He woke up screaming.

“No, no, no.” He was sobbing, and he didn’t even know why. He didn’t know where he was, or why he was saying no. He didn’t know why he was screaming; only that it seemed to be an old pattern, one that had repeated itself for so long, yet he had no idea just how long.

He stopped screaming quickly. It seemed pointless if he didn’t remember the reason.

People came and did tests, drawing blood and checking his vitals. He nodded and spoke to each other in low, hushed voices. They did not look at him. He watched them.

They led him to a different room and put a headband around his head. There was a chair; they sat him in it. He did not resist. A soft voice spoke in his ear and colored pictures played on the screen. His listened; he watched. There was no reason not to. They spoke of corruption in the West, of greed and death and violence and war.

Vaguely, deep in his mind, something was screaming. Screaming that _he_ was from America, that it wasn’t that bad. That this was _wrong_.

He ignored it. The screaming died away after a while.

The pictures and concepts meant little to him; he could care less about Capitalism and Communism. He listened to the deeper meanings of chaos and destruction and misuse of freedom. He didn’t know why, but he felt better for having a reason to fight.

Because they were going to make him fight.

There was a room not far away from the colored pictures and soft voice in his ear. Faces came and went; some looked terrified, tears running down their face. After they taught him everything they could, he heard them taken away and a single gunshot rang out. Others looked impassive or gleeful, showing him everything, how to fight and fight dirty. How to manipulate his entire body into becoming a single, powerful weapon. His body seemed used to it, ready for it, yet the things they taught him went beyond that. He twisted himself and flung himself and put on muscle and learned how to use a knife, how to shoot hundreds of types of guns, how to strangle a person using a variety of objects. How to kill someone with what should be a nonlethal weapon. How to break a body into a thousand pieces while keeping the person alive. How to remain alert to his surroundings and take note of every detail, from the change in a breeze to one wrong micro-expression.

Somewhere in his mind, that voice screamed that this was so _wrong_ —this wasn’t who he should be. He ignored it, because it did not matter; it did not help.

They kept him out of cryo for months at a time, though they did dozens of wipes. They never took away the knowledge he needed to do his job, and he continued to learn.

They sent him out on his first mission. A diplomat who said the wrong things to the wrong people.

He came back and killed most of the people in the room; scientists and soldiers who stood no chance in the face of what they had created. They wiped him more intensively, and he had to relearn some of his knowledge.

After that, he was broken. He was their soldier. He was their salvation. He was theirs.

And he never argued.

And he never fought back.

And he always screamed.

*

The Asset woke up screaming.

It was a hair-raising call, one that slithered down the spine, seeping into the cracks and joints and pulled at the frayed ends of humanity. It was a sound that was neither human nor beast, and it was where the idea that no man rested inside the Soldier—that he wasn’t human, that he was no one but a weapon of HYDRA’s—began. For no human would dare utter a sound like that.

And no one listened to his pain.

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't beta'd, because I wanted to get this out there. I'll probably go back and fix it soon. I hope you enjoyed.
> 
> Song is from Radical Face's song 'Glory'.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own the constellation Orion, nor do I own Captain America & Co.


End file.
